DETROIT — Eli Manning assured anyone who listened, and anyone who wanted to believe him, it would be different once the real games began. That his new West Coast offense would no longer be an unadulterated mess, sputtering at every turn, the dysfunction of the summer in the rearview mirror.

Manning, with Ben McAdoo riding shotgun, would disembark from the Big Blue Edsel they had been driving, and where else but in Motown?

Except the whole damn team was in that Big Blue Edsel, and they never bothered getting out.

It was all an E-Lie.

Welcome to Woetown, the place where your 2014 New York Football Giants, fresh meat for hungry Lions, 35-14 losers Monday night, currently reside.

It’s only one game, but you know what this looks like right now?

6-10, 7-9, maybe 8-8.

This Jest Coast offense is still a disjointed band devoid of harmony and rhythm, compromised too often by a ragtag offensive line, sometimes by receivers who don’t scare anybody and sometimes by Manning, who has to be seeing ghosts bearing down on him even when they are nowhere in sight. The running game, the only saving grace in preseason, was nowhere in sight, either. Victor Cruz caught two balls. Rueben Randle is Missing in Action. Jerrel Jernigan is not Odell Beckham Jr., who currently is not Odell Beckham Jr. Manning’s Go-to Guy? Tight end Larry Donnell, ladies and gentlemen. In other words, Jumbo Elliott isn’t blocking for Manning, and Calvin Johnson (7 catches, 164 yards, two TDs) isn’t getting open for him.

It doesn’t excuse the quarterback throwing two interceptions to begin a season of redemption for the 27 he threw last season.

“There’s no reason for the turnovers. … That’s not part of the offense,” Manning said.

This was a huge gamble, overhauling the offense and asking Manning to master it and make others around him better at a time when he was too busy trying to make himself better.

It is a gamble that is blowing up in all of their faces, from John Mara to Tom Coughlin to Manning on down.

The Lions displayed the blueprint for stalling this offense: Stop the run, then pin your ears back and hound a borderline skittish quarterback searching for answers.

If there was one play that illustrated the essence of this Jest Coast offense, it came on the opening series of the second half when Manning, on third-and-9, threw over the middle for Donnell.

Except that Donnell wasn’t looking.

Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy was.

The interception positioned Matthew Stafford and the Lions at the Giants’ 18, and Big Blue, plagued with miscommunication lapses and torched early by Stafford and Megatron, made a stand, and so 14-7 became 17-7.

“Threw the ball too quick, and he had no reason to be looking,” Manning said. “He was doing the right thing, and I was doing the wrong thing.”

There would soon be another play that epitomized Manning’s Big Blue Edsel.

Under severe pressure from Nick Fairley, Manning scrambled frantically to his left, and threw across his body for Cruz. They could have called the infield-fly rule. The lollipop hung in the air long enough for Glover Quin to dart in front of Cruz and intercept, and soon it was 27-7.

“Bad decision by me. … Rolling left, I didn’t get as much on it that I wanted to,” Manning said.

Manning’s best play in the first quarter was a 15-yard roughing-the-kicker penalty against Jerome Couplin that left Steve Weatherford sprawled on his back. It mercifully gave Manning a first down.

His second-best play came moments later when Darius Slay was called for interference on Jernigan. Now Manning had it first-and-goal at the 1.

He managed to make it 14-7, but how he did it would have made Bill Parcells’ smashmouth hair fall out.

The play calls: a fade for rookie Corey Washington, incomplete. Another fade, this one for Donnell, incomplete. Rashad Jennings for no gain. Finally, a successful lob in the left corner for Donnell against a defender 3 inches shorter, safety Isa Abdul-Quddus.

It was 7-0 when Manning trotted out for the first time in 2014.

It was 7-0 because Stafford and Megatron played catch — Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and late-arriving Stevie Brown collided and were left sprawled as Megatron was all alone for a 67-yard TD. It was 14-0 by the time Manning got it back, 14-0 because Stafford was having so much fun playing catch again with Megatron.

“I’m not concerned,” Manning said. “From that first game, that’s where you’ll learn the most, I think.”